Tag: Temple Owls

Though I am most certainly not one of the many bowl season detractors who crawl out of the woodwork every year, the stop-and-go nature of the bowl season's early half is somewhat annoying. The postseason began with a splash on Saturday, featuring five FBS bowls, and a sixth offering from the FCS. It felt almost…

It's time for another edition of the Third Phase, America's favorite column about college punting. We're very confident about that declarative statement (okay maybe not). You can check out previous columns here. There was so much punting content this weekend, that it was difficult keeping track of everything. However, it is the duty of this…

In the first November Heisman Top 10 aggregate of media and voter rankings, some interesting names stand out. This most recent list includes a defense-only candidate; a primarily defense and special teams player; and a Group of Five star. Sure, the top three is populated with the prototypical Heisman contender: the starting quarterbacks of three…

Thursday nights take on a much different vibe in adulthood than in those four(-plus) magical years of college. It's really no surprise, then, that Thursday night football takes on a much more fun aura when played by college kids, and the version involving pros is often a joyless slog. On college campuses nationwide, Thursday marks…

CFB Huddle's American Athletic Preview Week turns focus outside the AAC and to the ACC, Big 12, Mountain West, MAC. From these conferences come opponents in some of the AAC's most promising non-league dates. Nonconference play contributed to the positive perception of the American a year ago: Houston's defeats of Louisville and Vanderbilt, Memphis routing…

Tyler Matakevich rose from All AAC Defense to national defensive player of the year last season. The Temple Owls linebacker is NFL-bound, leaving a spot for another American Athletic defensive standout to reach the pinnacle this year. ALL-AAC 2016 DEFENSE Among the great stories of the American's rise a season ago: Temple's emergence. The Owls…

The Preseason All AAC nominees spotlighted as part of the CFB Huddle season preview series may not include many household names -- not yet, anyway. But the emergence of stars like Keenan Reynolds and Paxton Lynch a season ago proved the star power residing in the American Athletic Conference. This year's crop is rife with…

Teams from around the American Athletic Conference last season adopted #AmericanRising, a Twitter hashtag that perfectly described the state of the league's football in 2015. Commissioner Mike Aresco's declaration at AAC Media Days in August that the league was striving to make the Power Five the Power Six essentially called the American's shot. American teams…

Big 12 expansion may not be inevitable -- the University of Texas reportedly has issues, and it's well established that the Longhorns wield more clout than much of the conference. Nevertheless, as the din of conference realignment grows, and nonsensical arguments contingent on seemingly arbitrary percentages gain traction, the possibility of Big 12 expansion has…

The Bronko Nagurski Award and a buck won't get you a cup of coffee in the NFL, apparently. That's the takeaway from Scooby Wright and Tyler Matakevich, the winners of college football's national defensive player of the year honors each of the last two seasons. Tyler Matakevich, the Temple tackling machine who racked up 493…

Opening weekend for the 2015 bowl season did not disappoint. Kenneth Dixon became college football's new touchdown king in New Orleans. One Mountain West team, San Jose State, rallied in Orlando, while another, New Mexico, fell just short in Albuquerque. Appalachian State's torrid comeback in Montgomery sealed the Mountaineers' first bowl win in program history,…

Conference championship weekend marks the last hurrah of the college football regular season. Cue the music. What a wild, fun ride it's been from the last weekend of August, when Montana and North Dakota State officially kicked off the 2015 season, to this point in December. Coincidentally, Montana plays North Dakota State again in Saturday's…

Navy's loss at Houston Friday complicates the Group of Five conference's New Year's Six bowl bid, but the solution for any scenario is quite simply. Send the American Athletic Conference champion no matter what. Dissect it any way you so choose. With Toledo losing at home Friday to Western Michigan, the third installment of the…

Happy Halloween and welcome to Week 9 of the college football season. To celebrate the intersection of my favorite sport with one of my favorite holidays, I employed the Silver Shamrock Company to manufacture one college football team's helmets. Alternate uniforms may be passe, but an alternate helmet that turns wearers' heads into snakes and…

Welcome to the Group of Five Top 10, where it's more American than 1980s Hulk Hogan draped in the Stars and Stripes riding a bald eagle on the Fourth of July. Teams from the American Athletic Conference occupy four of the top five spots in the Top 10 through Week 8, including each of the…